We are looking for about 10-15 courses to supplement and complement the offerings at the 2025 Linguistics Society of America Summer Institute, to be held in Eugene, OR, USA from July 7 to August 8, 2025. The Institute is the largest and most prestigious summer school for linguistics in the world, and has been held since 1928. Eugene is a city of ~170,000 people, home to the University of Oregon, located at the southern end of the beautiful Willamette Valley. Within a 90-minute drive, you will find snow-capped mountains, a gorgeous coastline, wild hot springs, deserted ocean beaches, top-notch wineries, and more.
The theme of the Institute is “Language in Use”, and we currently have particular strengths in
- Typology
- Descriptive and functional morphosyntax
- Usage-based, learning-theoretic and constructivist approaches to language acquisition
- Language variation and change, including frequency effects therein
- Construction grammar and formulaic language
- Information-theoretic and probabilistic approaches to linguistic theory
- Bayesian and connectionist approaches to speech and language processing
- Statistical methods in linguistic data analysis
Courses can be either 2.5 weeks (July 5 – July 22, or July 24 – August 8) or the full 5 weeks. Courses scheduled for the full 5 weeks should be relatively broad. Each course will meet twice a week for 100 minutes each time, either on Mondays and Thursdays or on Tuesdays and Fridays.
We are especially interested in courses that will provide alternative perspectives on the core questions of linguistics: why languages are the way they are, why and how do they change in the directions they do, how do we produce and comprehend speech or sign, and how do we become competent speakers or signers of a language.
We will reimburse the costs of traveling to Eugene for 1-2 instructors (up to $1500/person), provide housing and meals for the duration of the institute in university dormitories, as well a small honorarium (~$500 for a two-week course or $1000 for a 5-week course; split between the instructors of the course). Housing for the duration of the institute is available in the form of one-person dormitory rooms. For those bringing families, we will try to cover expenses of family housing up to the cost of a dorm room, but availability of family housing cannot be guaranteed.
Perhaps, the most important benefit of teaching at the institute is interacting with interesting colleagues. A list of faculty who have made preliminary commitments is available here: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/ublab/courses-and-instructors/
Preliminary titles and descriptions (where available) of some courses are also available here https://blogs.uoregon.edu/ublab/courses-and-instructors/. This list is to be updated; in the meantime, please enquire if you wonder whether your topic is already covered.
Course proposals should include:
- Course title
- Name(s) and affiliation(s) of the proposer(s)
- One-paragraph description of the course (300 words max)
- Five keywords
- Whether the course should be a five-week course (10 sessions), or a 2.5 week course (5 sessions). If a 2.5 week course, would it need to take place during the 1st term (July 7-22) or the 2nd term (July 24-Aug 8), or would either term work?
- Short statement on how the course relates to the theme of the institute and the focus areas above (could be complementary to the areas above broadening coverage, or deepening coverage, or providing an alternative perspective), and what students will get out of it (200 words max)
- Estimated enrollment (assuming 300 students who have 5 courses available to them at any one time); Note: we only need this for room allocation – estimating a small class size will not be held against the proposal
- Preliminary schedule with readings (and/or activities) for each class period
Link for submissions: https://oregon.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4OTlbzcO5vKVTp4
Deadline: August 1, 2024
Selections will be made by September 1, 2024
Feel free to contact me with any questions at vkapatsi@uoregon.edu
Vsevolod (Volya) Kapatsinski on behalf of myself, Kaori Idemaru and Spike Gildea, co-directors
